Download Situations #1-5

Situation #1 (1930—1938)
When World War I came to an end in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson’ s League of Nations would have
committed America to help maintain international peace. However, the U.S. Senate rejected joining the
League of Nations. Through the 1920s, political leaders embraced an isolationist foreign policy and most
Americans seemed happy to enjoy the consumer goods and entrainment available during the “Roaring
Twenties.”
In the early 1930s, a flood of books argued that the United States had been dragged into World War I by
greedy bankers and arms dealers, the so called “merchants of death.” Chaired by North Dakota Senator
Gerald Nye, a series of Congressional hearings documented the large profits that banks and manufacturers
made during World War I.
During the 1930s, the Great Depression led to high unemployment and business failures. President
Franklin Roosevelt began his New Deal initiative to combat the effects of the depression. The depression
triggered a world‐wide depression that left European nations with high unemployment and no American
dollars for investment. In this climate of desperation and intense nationalism, totalitarian leaders increased
their power and initiated plans of conquest. Italian leader Benito Mussolini ordered a successful attack on
Ethiopia, Libya, and Albania. Adolf Hitler of Germany seized Austria and Czechoslovakia. Military dictator
Hideki Tojo of Japan led an attack on Manchuria and China.
What is the appropriate American response to these events?
Examine the choices below and choose the action that the U.S. government should have taken to best handle
the international events of World War II. Explain your choice.
(A) Do nothing and hope that these problems do not hurt the United States.
(B) Send European nations money in order to revive European economies and to help keep
more dictators from coming to power.
(C) Join the League of Nations in an effort to help secure international peace.
(D) Create a series laws to protect American neutrality by outlawing U.S. banks or businesses
from loaning money or selling military equipment to nations at war.
(E) Declare war on any aggressor nation that refuses to withdraw from the European,
African, or Asian territories that it conquered.
Explain your choice:
Situation #2 (1939)
British and French policies of appeasement did not bring an end to territorial aggression by Germany. By
1939, Hitler had restored the German military and taken Austria and Czechoslovakia. 1939, Hitler set his
sights on Poland. In August 1939, Hitler and Stalin surprised everyone by signing a nonaggression pact.
Once bitter enemies, fascist Germany and communist Russia now committed never to attack each other
and agreed to divide Poland between them. With the danger of a two‐front war eliminated, Germany
invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.
As day broke on September 1, 1939, the German Luftwaffe, or German air force, roared over Poland, raining
bombs on military bases, airfields, railroads, and cities. At the same time, German tanks raced across the
Polish countryside, spreading terror and confusion. This invasion was the first test of Germany’s new
blitzkrieg strategy, using fast tanks and more powerful aircraft to take the enemy by surprise and then
quickly crush all opposition with overwhelming force. On September 3, two days following the terror in
Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. The blitzkrieg tactics worked perfectly. Major fighting
was over in three weeks, long before France, Britain, and their allies could mount a defense. In the last
week of fighting, the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the east, grabbing some of its territory. By the end
of the month, Poland was conquered—and World War II had begun.
What is the appropriate American response to these events?
Examine the choices below and choose the action that the U.S. government should have taken to best handle
the international events of World War II. Explain your choice.
(A) Do nothing and hope that these problems do not hurt the United States.
(B) Remain neutral, but join the League of Nations in an effort to help secure international
peace
(C) Remain neutral but change the Neutrality Acts to allow the U.S. to sell war equipment to the
Allies but only if these countries agree to use their own boats.
(D) Remain neutral but give full support to the Allies by selling war supplies, loaning money, and
delivering equipment to Europe using U.S. ships
(E) Declare war on Germany and join the Allies.
Explain your choice:
Situation #3 (1940‐1941)
After attacking Poland in 1939, Hitler invaded Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and
Luxembourg in 1940. By May, the Nazis began their siege on France which surrendered to Germany on
June 22, 1940.
In the summer of 1940, the German air force (the Luftwaffe) began making bombing runs over Great
Britain. On a single day‐August 15‐approximately 2,000 German planes ranged over Britain. Every night
for two solid months, bombers pounded London. The “Battle of Britain” raged on through the summer and
fall. Night after night, German planes pounded British airfields and cities. During the Battle of Britain,
Prime Minister Winston Churchill inspired the British to fight back and “never surrender.”
In 1940, France had fallen and Britain was under siege. On September 27, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed
the Tripartite Pact. The three nations became known as the Axis Powers and agreed to come to the
defense of each other in case of attack. This meant that if the United States were to declare war on any
one of the Axis powers, it would face its worst military nightmare—a two‐ocean war, with fighting in both
the Atlantic and the Pacific.
What is the appropriate American response to these events?
Examine the choices below and choose the action that the U.S. government should have taken to best handle
the international events of World War II. Explain your choice.
(A) Do nothing and hope that these problems do not hurt the United States.
(B) Do not declare war but secretly negotiate with the British to send American soldiers to
fight in Europe.
(C) Help Britain defend itself by offering the Soviet Union money and war equipment if they
agree to break the Nazi‐Soviet Pact and attack Germany
(D) Remain neutral but give full support to Britain by selling war supplies, loaning money, and
delivering equipment to Europe using U.S. ships
(E) Declare war on Germany and join the fight with Britain to keep fascism from taking total
control of Europe.
Explain your choice:
Situation #4 (1941)
In June 1941, Hitler broke the Nonaggression Pact and invaded the Soviet Union. The action brought the
USSR into the war as an Allied Power, but Hitler believed that Britain would soon fall and the vast Russian
territory would provide Germans with enough “Lebensraum” (living space) to satisfy the Aryan race.
With the 1941 Lend‐Lease Act in effect, American war equipment began flowing into Britain. To prevent
delivery of lend‐lease shipments, Hitler deployed hundreds of submarines to attack supply ships, hunting
“wolf packs.” Wolf packs were successful in sinking as much as 350,000 tons of shipments in a single
month. In September 1941, President Roosevelt granted the navy permission for U.S. warships to attack
German U‐boats in self defense.
Germany’s European victories created new opportunities for Japanese expansion. Japan controlled Manchuria
and parts of China. In 1941, Hideki Tojo ordered an attack on the unprotected French, Dutch, and
British colonies in East Asia and Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos). The British and French were too
busy fighting Hitler to block Japanese expansion. Only the U.S. and its Pacific islands remained in Japan’s
way.
What is the appropriate American response to these events?
Examine the choices below and choose the action that the U.S. government should have taken to best handle
the international events of World War II. Explain your choice.
(A) Do nothing and hope that these problems do not hurt the United States.
(B) Concentrate on Europe: Give Lend‐Lease aid to Stalin so that the USSR can defend itself
and fight Germany, but avoid confrontation with Japan.
(C) Concentrate on Asia: Negotiate a peaceful settlement with the Japanese to keep Hawaii and the
Philippines safe from Japanese attacks. Keep giving aid to Britain.
(D) Remain neutral, but offer any and all assistance to Britain and the Soviet Union in Europe and
stop Japanese aggression in Asia by cutting off the sale of oil.
(E) Enough is enough; the world needs the United States. Declare war on the Axis Powers in
order to end totalitarian control of Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Explain your choice:
Situation #5 (1941)
The United States protested Japanese aggression by cutting off trade with Japan. Japanese military leaders
warned that without oil, Japan could be defeated without its enemies ever striking a blow. The leaders
declared that Japan must either persuade the United States to end its oil embargo or seize the oil fields in the
Dutch East Indies. On November 5, 1941, Tojo ordered the Japanese navy to prepare for an attack on the
United States. The U.S. military had broken Japan’s secret communication codes and learned that Japan was
preparing for a strike. What it didn’t know was where the attack would come. Late in November, Roosevelt
sent out a “war warning” to military commanders in Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines.
On December 7, 1941, the Japanese began a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor—the largest
U.S. naval base in the Pacific—launching more than 180 Japanese warplanes from six aircraft carriers. In less
than two hours, the Japanese had killed 2,403 Americans and wounded 1,178 more. The surprise raid had
sunk or damaged 21 ships, including 8 battleships—nearly the whole U.S. Pacific fleet. More than 300
aircraft were severely damaged or destroyed. These losses constituted greater damage than the U.S. Navy
had suffered in all of World War I. By chance, three aircraft carriers at sea escaped the disaster. President
Roosevelt referred to the December 7, 1941 attack as “a date which will live in infamy.”
What is the appropriate American response to these events?
Examine the choices below and choose the action that the U.S. government should have taken to best handle
the international events of World War II. Explain your choice.
(A) Declare war on Japan and mobilize for a war in Asia. Hope that Britain and the Soviet
Union can defeat Germany and Italy by themselves.
(B) Declare war on all the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan), but prioritize Japan as the
biggest threat to U.S. safety. Start preparations for an Asian war.
(C) Declare war on all the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan), but prioritize Germany as
the biggest threat to U.S. safety. Focus on Europe first.
(D) Declare war on all the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and split the U.S. military into
two equal fighting forces. Focus on Asia and Europe equally.
Explain your choice: